American History - Pottstown School District

1 Once in a while, large numbers of people feel such a connection to a news event that they stop everything. The short story you are about to read takes place on November 22, 1963, when the assassination of President John F. Kennedy stunned and distressed an entire s the Connection?President Kennedy s untimely death had a profound and lasting effect on the people of the United States. After American History , you ll read a magazine article that explores the country s enduring fascination with its 35th president. Then you ll view a photograph that reveals the shock and grief individual people experienced on that tragic November day. When do WORLD EVENTS hit home? American HistoryShort Story by Judith Ortiz CoferSpecial ReportMagazine Article from News & World ReportPresident KilledPhotographKEYWORD: HML9-962 VIDEO TRAILER962 Comparing Tex tsRL 3 Analyze how complex characters develop over the course of a text and interact with other characters.

2 RL 7 Analyze the representation of a subject in different artistic mediums. RL 10 Read and comprehend stories. L 4a Use context as a clue to the meaning of a link at 9621/14/11 10:11:20 AM1/14/11 10:11:20 AMMeet the AuthorComplete the activities in your Reader/Writer Ortiz Coferborn 1952A Child of Two Cultures It s no wonder that Judith Ortiz Cofer writes about what it s like to be a Puerto Rican girl growing up in a mainland city. I write about the things I have known, she says. Cofer was born in Puerto Rico but moved at a young age to Paterson, New Jersey, where she lived in a large apartment building known by its residents as El Building. Whenever her father, a navy man, was on active duty, however, her mother would take the family back to Puerto Rico to live with their grandmother.

3 Her father pushed her to adopt American ways, while her mother counseled her to hold on to Puerto Rican Power of Words Cofer first became aware of the power of storytelling during visits with her grandmother, who Cofer says could silence an entire room when she said Tengo un cuento ( I have a story to tell ). Cofer especially loves writing poetry, because in a poem every word weighs a ton. background to the storyA Great Loss American History takes place on the day of President John F. Kennedy s assassination. The president s death deeply saddened the Puerto Rican American community because, as Cofer points out, President Kennedy was a saint to these people. Not only was he a charming young father and husband, but his goals were their dreams.

4 He pledged to fight racial discrimination in the United States, raise the standard of living, and wipe out communism in Latin American countries. text analysis: influence of author s backgroundAn author s background that is, the writer s life experiences and cultural heritage shapes his or her perspective on the world and inevitably influences what he or she writes, whether it is fiction or nonfiction. For example, Judith Ortiz Cofer was born in Puerto Rico but moved at a young age to Paterson, New Jersey. She sets many of her stories in Paterson, featuring Puerto Rican born Americans. Before you read American History , learn more about Cofer from the biography on this page. Then, as you read the story, look for the following: references to places you know Cofer has lived or visited realistic, complex characters whose beliefs, values, or heritage echo Cofer s events and circumstances that are similar to Cofer s own Review: Character reading strategy: connectGood readers connect what they know about a person, place, or situation to what they are reading in order to understand it better.

5 As you read American History , connect your own life experiences to what you find in the story the characters circumstances, actions, and feelings. Record your connections on a chart such as the one begun here. Detail from Story tenementConnectionI read about tenements in social studies large, rundown apartment buildings with poor UnderstandingEl Building must be big and rundown. vocabulary in contextTry to guess the meaning of each boldfaced word from its context. 1. soft music and muted conversation 2. hierarchy of command 3. maneuvering the car 4. infatuated and in love 5. vigilant protection 6. enthralled by the movie 7. distraught at losingher job 8. resigned to failing 9.

6 A dilapidated shack 10. seeking solace in prayerGo to : HML9-963 Author 9631/14/11 10:11:39 AM1/14/11 10:11:39 AMI once read in a Ripley s Believe It or Not column that Paterson, New Jersey, is the place where the Straight and Narrow (streets) intersect. The Puerto Rican tenement known as El Building was one block up from Straight. It was, in fact, the corner of Straight and Market; not at the corner, but the corner. At almost any hour of the day, El Building was like a monstrous jukebox, blasting out salsas1 from open windows as the residents, mostly new immigrants just up from the island,2 tried to drown out whatever they were currently enduring with loud music. But the day President Kennedy was shot there was a profound silence in El Building; even the abusive tongues of viragoes,3 the cursing of the unemployed, and the screeching of small children had been somehow muted.

7 President Kennedy was a saint to these people. In fact, soon his photograph would be hung alongside the Sacred Heart and over the spiritist altars4 that many women kept in their apartments. He would become part of the hierarchy of martyrs they prayed to for favors that only one who had died for a cause would understand. aOn the day that President Kennedy was shot, my ninth grade class had been out in the fenced playground of Public School Number 13. We had been given free exercise time and had been ordered by our teacher, Mr. DePalma, to keep moving. That meant that the girls should jump rope and the boys toss basketballs through a hoop at the far end of the yard. He in the meantime would keep an eye on us from just inside the building.

8 1. salsas (s lPs s): Latin- American dance tunes. 2. the island: Puerto Rico. 3. abusive tongues of viragoes (vE-r PgIz): hurtful comments of noisy, scolding women. 4. alongside the Sacred Heart .. spiritist altars: The Sacred Heart, an image showing the physical heart of Jesus Christ, symbolizes Christ s love to some Roman Catholics. Spiritist altars are places of worship set up to observe spiritism, a set of religious beliefs based on the idea that spirits of the dead communicate with the living. 1020 AmericanHistoryAmericanHistory AmericanHistoryAmericanHistoryAmerican Historyjudith ortiz coferConsider the images on page 965. Why might the artist have chosen to place the photographs on a filmstrip background?

9 Describe the effect created by this (myLPtGd) adj. softened or muffledhierarchy (hFPE-r r kC) n. a body of persons having authoritya AUTHOR S BACKGROUND Reread lines 1 15. What story elements appear to come from the author s background? , top, center Corbis; bottom Bettmann/Corbis964 unit 9: History , culture, and the 9641/14/11 10:08:58 AM1/14/11 10:08:58 AMComparing 9651/14/11 10:09:26 AM1/14/11 10:09:26 AM30405060It was a cold gray day in Paterson. The kind that warns of early snow. I was miserable, since I had forgotten my gloves, and my knuckles were turning red and raw from the jump rope. I was also taking a lot of abuse from the black girls for not turning the rope hard and fast enough for them.

10 Hey, Skinny Bones, pump it, girl. Ain t you got no energy today? Gail, the biggest of the black girls had the other end of the rope, yelled, Didn t you eat your rice and beans and pork chops for breakfast today? The other girls picked up the pork chop and made it into a refrain: pork chop, pork chop, did you eat your pork chop? They entered the double ropes in pairs and exited without tripping or missing a beat. I felt a burning on my cheeks and then my glasses fogged up so that I could not manage to coordinate the jump rope with Gail. The chill was doing to me what it always did; entering my bones, making me cry, humiliating me. I hated the city, especially in winter. I hated Public School Number 13.